George Eliot Primary School

I had relatively happy days at George Eliot primary school. 

In 1953 I watched the coronation at Robert Fleschmann's in Belsize Park Gardens, because we did not have a TV at home. Later, I used to play with Fritz Pesek (son of an official at the Indonesian embassy) and Pete Simonyi (son of Hungarian refugees, as was Gabi). I used to go home with them after school in  their places in Goldhurst Terrace, especially Fritz's to watch TV - Hopalong Cassidy and the Cisco Kid were favourites.

Other best friends who I kept in touch with through my teens were Gabi (Gabriel) Weissman (Fairhazel Gardens) and David Wallis-Jones (Steele's Road). I shared a developing love of art and literature with Gabi, and a love of science and an interest in folk music and blues with David.

I still see Henry Jacobsen (who lives in Kentish Town) who was at the school (and his twin brother Quentin Jacobsen sometimes when he pops over from Australia). I also see Ruth Hilton (in Brighton) and Roger Silverman (Forest Gate). Sometimes we have reunion lunches and we also see Margaret Engler who initiated the get togethers, Alfred Levy and his wife Lorraine. Angela Lewi, Rosalind Zaug.

In February 2003 - the day of the big anti-war demo - there was a reunion of the 1952-56 class from GE hosted wonderfully by Margaret Engler (ne Millington). Steve Cousins, Dave Wallis-Jones, Ruth Hilton, Robert Fleischmann, Jaqueline Sinfield, Roger Silverman, Alfred (& Lorraine) Levy, Angela Lewi, Rosalind Zaug and others were there. It was great! Lorna Cordray and others have become regulars too!

At some of the subsequent reunions we saw Steve Cousins and  Dave Wallis-Jones, Sadly they died in the noughties, as Jaqueline Sinfield did about 12 years ago. Sadly Gabi Weissmann died mid-late 90s, after two failed liver transplants. Robert Fleischmann has gone too.

Other people who went there were my sister Susan and Graham Gluck, who came to one of the reunions. His email does not work any more.

What do I remember about George Eliot? I remember my first day, I think it was September 1952 - although I always thought it was in January 1952. But I just found my school report from St Mary's Town and Country School in Eton Avenue dated Summer 1952. Anyway, I remember crying outside the classroom door looking through the glass panel. There were about 44 kids at double desks facing the front, with a grey haired teacher Mrs Hammett teaching. I knew no-one and felt fearful and abandoned, and the teachers were strict. But I soon settled in.

I still remember the country dancing, and the folk singing - there was a postwar revival of British culture. I recall the 'object lessons' - marvelling at a cacao pod that passed from hand to hand. We learned to tell the difference between plane, sycamore, oak, horse chestnut and lime trees. We did French - I was good at that - having lived in France 1949-51. "Ouvre la porte, Paul". I remember being asked that and opening the door. 

I was a slow reader in English at age 9, havingattended kindergarten in sweden and school in France (Antibes and Paris). My mother, Elna, a clinical psychologist took me in hand had gave me remedial reading lessons for 2 months. After that I was the best and fastest reader in the class! One year I won a prize for doing well at school work. But what it meant was that I went to the front of assembly and collected a piece of equipment for the school. I felt cheated, that was no prize! Looking back I can see it was an honour and more communitarian reward than an individual prize. But they ought to warn you!

I walked there from our rented garden flat at 97 Canfield Gardens, walking mostly along Fairhazel Gardens (on which Gabi lived at number 49). Then I would cross by the roundabout (on Belsize Road) near South Hamptead station and walk along Loudon Road. It was left up Boundary Road (a right turn took you to the sweetshop) then immediate right down Marlborough Road where the school entrance is situated.

(The sweetshop: you could buy 1d and 2d bars of chocolate (unwrapped), fruit salad and black jack chews (1/4d or one farthing each or 5 for 1d), flying saucers, sherbert fountains, 'smoking sets' made of liquorice piples, coconut 'tobacco', chocolate cigarettes, etc, as well as spangles (now starburst) 3d, Mars bars 5p?, Five boys Fry's Chocolate bars 3d, etc. Choosing sweets was an enjoyable treat. Not as much fun as eating them, but part of the ritual!).

I first met Gabi when he joined George Eliot primary School. I had started at its opening, probably Autumn 1952 but Gabi joined later perhaps 1954. After he joined, in assembly the head teacher Mr Bradford announced the Gabi (who was a bit overweight) had sat on the drinks fountain - which was hung from the wall in the playground - and broken it. He continued by saying that no one should play with him as he was a very bad boy and had to pay the school £3 17s 6d (or something like that) for its repair.   

(Mr  Bradford was fundamentally a nice man, but he could get into a terrible temper and his face go all red. Gabi was unfortunately a victim of one of his outbursts.) 

When Mr Bradford announced that Gabi was to be shunned I was absolutely outraged at the injustice and victimisation (not that I had that vocabulary) so I sought Gabi out and over a short period of time we became very close pals.

Not long after the drinking fountain incident  there was an announcement in assembly that a thruppenny bit (3d) had been found in the playground. Gabi had lost one, and so he claimed it. But Mr Bradford withheld it and said “Well, we can put that towards the new drinking fountain, can’t we?” 

As I recall it said 1951 in large numerals on the playground but in fact opened in 1952. In my classes there were 44 or 45 children, seated 2 by 2 on double desks. It was a modern set of buildings and the classrooms had many large windows, walls of windowas as I recall.

I recently discovered that someone called Ruth Doniach also attended George Eliot School because she posted her memories at https://www.stjohnswoodmemories.org.uk/content/new-contributions/14-langford-place-1946-54

She writes "I left Barrow Hill in 1953 and went to the new primary school in Marlborough Hill called George Eliot. The head teacher was Mr Bradford and my class teacher was Miss Hammett. We had to sit in order of test results and I disliked having to sit with the boys as I was 5th in the class and the top four were boys. Two of them were Nicholas Swingler and Andrew Segal who both enjoyed making sarcastic remarks and teasing me for being a girl….

My only moments of glory were winning a book prize for the London Essay Competition two years running – one was Bambi and the other Wind in the Willows. We were all given rather ugly Coronation mugs as souvenirs and I still have mine!"

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Oh I remember the little Coronation gifts (ruler, notebook, tin of chocolate, mug) I think we got one each. We walked down to Abbey Road and stood by the kerb for hours and then the queen roared by in an open top car at 30 mph we waved our flags and it was all over in 5 secs! All I saw was a hat, really! [PE]

I was still attending George Eliot School when my family moved to another flat at 13-15 Frognal, NW3 in 1956. I recall taking the bus to school along Finchley Road. Any of 2, 13, 113 would take me to Swiss Cottage for the school. I recall taking a large envelope of used stamps to school. I held it the wrong way up and I saw this multicoloured confetti of square and rectangles blowing down the road. I felt both sadness and resignation as they blew away, and made no attempt to jump into the dangerous stream of traffic to salvage a few.

Later that year I passed my 11+ and started at William Ellis Grammar School, along with Alfred Levy and Peter Weir from George Eliot. Roger Silverman got a scholarship to Haberdasher's Aske (and transferred to UCS when it closed). Gabi went to Quintin Grammar School, Swiss Cottage, and David Wallis-Jones when to the neighbouring Kynaston Technical School, and went on to be the very respected head teacher at Christ Church Primary School in Fitzjohns Avenue, Hampstead.

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Diana Chapman writes from Desborough, Northamptonshire  with her memories of George Eliot School

Dear Paul

Miss Bourne was our class teacher. Miss Hammet taught us music/singing (in the hall, once the lunch trestle tables were cleared away).

I can add to your list: -

Susan Gill and younger brother Michael 

Rosalind Sutcliffe

Oliver Swingler 

Godfrey McGann

Michael Fisher

Renata (I can't remember her surname)

Neil Bowman (his sister Linda, and family, lived on the corner of Marlborough Hill and Carlton Hill. His Father was a physiotherapist at Middlesex Hospital and his Mother was Italian and an artist, largely in oils.)

Regards

Diana Chapman (nee Cameron-Shea  but I only used the surname Shea, for fear of being seen as too "posh")

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Both these raconteurs mention Swinglers: Ruth Doniach lists Nicholas Swingler and Diana Chapman mentions Oliver Swingler. They were part of the Swingler family that lived in Belsize Park Gardens. These two had a sister Clare Swingler who attended Parliament Hill School and was one of the stalwarts of the CND marches and the Witches Cauldren crowd of the early 60s. Clare was a great beauty and lived some years in the 70s with dear friend Tony Barnett.  See pictures of her elsewhere on this site.

The Swinglers were a left wing Hampstead bunch, and when the mother Anne died in 2011 aged 93, there was a nice biography in the Guardian written by her grandson Dylan Howitt, who I think is one of Clare's children. The Biography features the photo (below) of the beautiful Anne Swingler (ne Lily Matthews). The father of the brood is  Stephen Swingler, MP, who sadly died in 1969. Clare is alive and well, living in Somerset.

The biography concludes:

At the Labour Research Department in 1936, Anne met Stephen Swingler, an Oxford student. They married within months. In the Labour landslide of 1945 he was elected MP for Stafford, and from 1951 until his death in 1969, he was MP for Newcastle-under-Lyme. Anne raised their four children, also working as Stephen's assistant, and hosting social events with consummate skill. In the 1970s, she began a new career, helping families move to the new town of Milton Keynes, and later volunteering at Shelter Housing Aid.

Anne handed in her Labour party membership card briefly in 2004 in protest against the Iraq war. She loved people, politics and good conversation, usually accompanied by a glass of brandy. She was a vivacious host and a great storyteller, always up for a riotous laugh.

She is survived by her brother, Colin; four children, Robin, Nicholas, Clare and Oliver; six grandchildren (including me); and four great-grandchildren.

https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2011/may/11/anne-swingler-obituary